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Some people who were eligible lost Medicaid in Pa.

By MARC LEVY Associated Press

Updated:
03/05/2013 07:02:41 PM EST

HARRISBURG, Pa.—About 3,000 people who had been bumped off the state's Medicaid rolls amid a case review that alarmed advocates for the poor were found to be eligible for the health care program, Gov. Tom Corbett's top public welfare official told senators on Tuesday.

Bev Mackereth, the Department of Public Welfare's acting secretary, told a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that her agency made the discovery after sending more than 100,000 letters to people who'd had their cases closed after the review began in August 2011.

"When this administration took over, there was a backlog of cases for redetermination that had not been looked at," Mackereth told senators after being questioned about it. "We did look at those cases, and the department also sent out letters to people that they believed could be eligible, and out of all the letters sent out, which was over 100,000, 3 percent actually turned out to be eligible."

It was not clear Tuesday if the department knew whether the other 97 percent of households were ineligible or whether DPW simply never heard back from them.

The department agreed to send the letters last fall to settle claims that families were improperly purged from the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. State figures show there are still 88,000 fewer children on Medicaid since August 2011, when caseworkers began the review of eligibility, and 33,000 more adults.

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Federal officials last year asked why Pennsylvania's Medicaid rolls had dropped, and suggested that some people might have been improperly kicked off because caseworkers had not sorted through a substantial backlog of information submitted by people seeking to prove their eligibility to keep the medical benefit.

Mackereth defended her agency's efforts Tuesday.

"We can debate this forever: Were there children taken off? Were there not? I would say based on what I've heard, the Department of (Public) Welfare did their due diligence and more to reach out to people and to ensure that anybody who'd be eligible knew to reapply or did their redeterminations," Mackereth said.

She added that some people simply do not want to be on the government rolls, and she encouraged lawmakers to help spread the word that people should apply to Medicaid if they believe they are eligible.

Nearly 2.2 million Pennsylvanians are currently on Medicaid, or one in six Pennsylvanians, including about one-third of children and about two-thirds of the elderly in nursing homes. Enrollment is expected to rise even without expanding Medicaid eligibility under a sweeping 2010 federal health care law.

Department officials told senators Tuesday the agency expects 75,000 to 100,000 new people—who are already eligible—to sign up because of increased attention generated by the federal law's insurance exchange.

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